188 replies to this topic

[Morsule]

Thank you - great guide and good information and perspective.

[Nehkrosis]

Will this be getting an update at all soon?

[Jabilo]

Nehkrosis, on 06 January 2014 - 07:56 AM, said:

Will this be getting an update at all soon?

80bit posted in December to say he was working on it.

I for one look forward to an update!

[Horusv2]

too bad this isnt getting an update. I found it very informative

[Catalina Steiner]

I'm creating a german thread with similar content, partly inspired of your thread. Thank you for your work.

If you are german, you should visit this thread: Alle Mechs im Überblick

[guitarxe]

Have any mechs changed significantly since this was written to the point where what's written is completly wrong now? Or can this still be used as a good guideline?

[White Bear 84]

80Bit, on 06 June 2013 - 10:16 AM, said:

Part 1: Introduction

MechWarrior Online already has 17 unique BattleMech chassis available, with many more on the way. Each BattleMech has 3 or more unique variants available, leading to 70+ unique BattleMechs to choose from. Picking the right mech to spend your hard earned C-Bills on can be a daunting task for newbie and veteran alike. While all the mechs can be fun, they each have their own strong and weak points, and some definitely rise above the rest in performance.
This compressive guide is meant to a subjective review each mech variant, how it stacks up to its peers, and what roles is excels at. While I do not own all 60+ mech variants, I do own, and have extensively played, one or more variant of each chassis. When rating the mechs, I considered how their hard points, hit boxes, performance, and unique characterizes define them compared to not only other variants, but other mechs that fit the same role. This guide covers mech capabilities in normal solo and small group play, so even mechs with high marks may not be great in the highest end 8v8 play.

Ranking System:

1 Star (*): These mechs have some deficiency that makes them clearly inferior to similar options.
2 Star (**): These mechs have no major flaws, but no stand out features either.
3 Star (***): These mechs have good hard points and are well rounded, and can perform great when loaded out properly.
ComStar (): These mechs are top tier. They do things other mechs can’t, and can be absolutely deadly with the right load out.

Important Note: These reviews are of the potential greatness of a mech, not of the mech’s stock load out. Even if you buy a “ComStar” rated mech, if your mech build is terrible, your results will be terrible as well. And even a 1 star mech is going to kick your butt if the pilot is of significantly higher skill. And I have tried to make the reviews from the perspective of balanced weapon systems. If one particular system is unbalanced or broken, it may affect the viability of specific mechs at that moment.

Spider (30 ton)

Spoiler

Spider (30 ton)
Pros: Fast and agile. Lots of Jump Jets. ECM variant.
Cons: Lightly armed. Low survivability. Low tonnage limits load out options.

The Spider is a mech that is loved by few, hated by most (true), and feared by none (judging from how quickly people turn/break off to hunt spiders). It is a two trick pony with one of those tricks tied behind its back by the current net code. You see, the point of the spider is to be a lightly armed, high jumping, super fast scout. It meets the first two criteria, but because of artificial speed limits currently in the game, instead of the top speeds of 180-190kph it should have, it has the same top speed as most of the light mechs. It does sport the most jump jets in the game, but flying through the air with the greatest of ease is not as useful as, you know, actually damaging enemies.(makes up for lower firepower - jumping allows the spider to do things other mechs cant, dodge fire and increase the difficulty in hitting the mech). With fewer weapon hard points that any other mech and no missile capable variant, the Spiders are all massively under gunned (true). While you can occasionally find someone raving about an amazing match they had in their PPC SDR-5D, such results are not typical, and many players (including myself) consider the Spider to be the all-around worst mech in the game right now.

(Idk, currently my spiders KDR is at 2.45 - that is not the hallmark of a bad mech..)

SDR-5D
Rating: *** (up one because of ECM and what it can do)
Role: Scout, Skirmisher
Top Speed: 151.5 KPH
Hard Points: 3E

This variant is the best of the worst. With 3 energy hard points, ECM, and some serious hops courtesy of 8 jump jets, the 5D is (an agile hunting machine) almost a good mech. But while it is certainly the most capable Spider variant in a fight, it (can) will still find itself out gunned by almost any other mech, including commandos. Still, since this mech has 2 arm mounted energy hard points and serious hang time, it does have the ability to run jump sniping builds of at least moderate effectiveness. High speeds, jump jets, and ECM combined also make this one of the most difficult mechs to kill, and many 5D pilots use it to simply distract and annoy the enemy team. If you want to buy one Spider just to try it out, (to seriously annoy the enemy team) this is the one to get.

(Last night I ran circles round an enemy stalker, coring it while being shot at by another mech. In a previous match I killed 3 lights and an Atlas and did around 500 damage (more than most mechs.. ..the point here, this mech is far from useless)

SDR-5K
Rating: ** (upped)
Role: Scout
Top Speed: 151.5 KPH
Hard Points: 1E 4B

The 5K is the variant that says “Who needs jump jets when you have machine guns!” I guess they did not want this mech to fly out of machine gun range, because in exchange for 4 ballistic hard points, they dropped it to 6 jump jets. But if you would like to use a weapon that actually does damage, it does at least have 1 energy hard point on the center torso. With the lowest potential firepower of any mech, and nothing to make up for it, the SDR-5K earns my pick as not only the worst Spider variant, but the worst mech in the entire game. (Give it credit - locusts. Pretty Baby. Awesomes in general lol)

(Very underatted. The MG crits are its strong points. This is a situational mech; it really comes into flavour when a mechs internals are revealed. Then it does a world of pain. Again, in the right hands - nasty. I will post up some vids soon!)

SDR-5V
Rating: *
Role: Scout
Top Speed: 151.5 KPH
Hard Points: 2E

Just when you thought the Spider couldn’t get any weaker, I present to you the 5V. This variant takes the Spider design philosophy to the extreme. With an incredibly meager 2 energy hard points, both on the center torso no less, getting a kill in the 5V can be as rare as a competent Atlas pilot. But unlike the 5K which takes away your firepower with nothing in return, the 5V gives you a record setting 12 jump jets. Still, all that air time doesn’t do much to overcome the lack of fire power, and the 5V is a novelty at best. (Im not going to lie, I agree with you here..)

I am going to throw a spanner in here and say that I personally disagree with this strongly. See above edits.

p.s. Great work writing this review by the way.. ..seriously a lot of time is needed putting this kind of stuff together.

[xionyx]

Thanks for this Post.

Did the Patches between the creation of this post an now changed the Balance or is this post still ok?

[Andi Nagasia]

Topics coming back to life?

This Topic is being Locked as to it being Necro'ed,